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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Stuart Murdoch of the Scottish indie pop band Belle and Sebastian about their new album Days of the Bagnold Summer.

In the crowded field of indie rock, a band's first few albums are crucial. They establish the band's sound and expand its fanbase. But Cincinnati's Heartless Bastards breaks those rules with its second CD, All This Time. Instead of sticking to its workmanlike gritty blues rock, the band has developed a more open, expansive and personal sound.

Backspacer is Pearl Jam's first studio album since the musicians became free agents, finally fulfilling a seven-album contract with Sony. That process took 15 years. The band is now on its own, striking distribution deals with major corporations, a turnaround for the once very anti-corporate band.

The Meat Puppets, a punk rock band led by brothers Cris and Curt Kirkwood, played with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged in 1994, and released the hit single "Backwater" the next year. Two years later, Cris plunged into a decade of heroin addiction, and the band fell apart. Now the Kirkwoods are back with Sewn Together, the band's second album since Cris' return.

NPR's David Greene talks to members of the rock band Yo La Tengo at the end of their stint as Morning Edition's in-house band for a day, and throws it to them for a song.

Meredith Ochs reviews Satellite Rides, the new release by the promising alternative country band, Old 97s. Ochs says the band and its leader Rhett Miller have been writing wonderful pop music with clever lyrics. (4:30) Satellite Rides by Old 97s is on the Elektra Records label. Their Web site is www.old97s.com.

Sigur Ros, a five-piece band from Iceland, makes spacey progressive music, with often-indecipherable lyrics. Its fourth studio CD is called Takk..., which means "Thanks."

The band Modest Mouse has released their first album in four years. The group often referred to as the perfect indie-rock band suddenly finds itself enjoying pop success that had eluded it for 10 years. Mikel Jollett has a review of their new CD, Good News for People who Love Bad News.

Guitarist, songwriter and vocalist James Hetfield was a founding member of the metal band Metallica. His time in rehab is chronicled in the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which tracks the band at a time of crisis and is now on DVD. We rebroadcast an interview with Hetfield from Nov. 9, 2004.

In the late 1960s he founded the MC5, a Detroit band considered to be the prototype for punk rock. By 1972 the band had burned out. In between then and now, Kramer did time in jail for drugs, teamed up with Don and David Was to found the group Was (Not Was), and began a solo career. His new solo album is Adult World. This interview first aired August 20, 2002.